Employment Trends Index Rises to 99.3 in December

The Conference Board’s employment trends index increased in December for the third straight month, rising to 99.3 from a revised 98.5 in November. The index is up 7.6% from a year ago.

Gad Levanon, Associate Director of Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board, said in a statement that “The improvement in the Employment Trends Index in recent months suggests employment growth is likely to accelerate moderately in the first half of 2011. While this is a welcome improvement, we don’t expect employment to grow fast enough for the unemployment rate to dip below 9 percent for the rest of the year.”